FORT WORTH — In a time of racial sensitivity, what are we to make of the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, presented Sunday afternoon at the Fort Worth Opera Festival? Is the opera's portrayal of poor Southern blacks, with attempts to transcribe their patois, condescending? Or is it a creative masterpiece celebrating the strengths of its characters amid poverty and, yes, racism?

With a libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, the opera is based on a Heyward novel that he and his wife, Dorothy, subsequently turned into a play. It's also based on the Heywards' and George Gershwin's close and genuinely affectionate observation of black communities in and around Charleston, S.C.

From a broader perspective, Porgy and Bess belongs to a continuum of verismo operas about the downtrodden, from Bizet's Carmen and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci through Ricky Ian Gordon's 2007 Grapes of Wrath. Although Porgy perpetuates clichés of superstition, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, many of the same dramas play out daily in current American cities.

In any case, the Heywards and Gershwins created some of the most vividly drawn characters anywhere in opera. George Gershwin gave them some of the greatest tunes ever composed, mingling idioms of jazz, blues and spirituals, wrapped in vivid orchestral writing. If there's such a thing as the great American opera, it just might be Porgy and Bess.

On Sunday afternoon at Bass Performance Hall, the Francesca Zambello production, here staged by Garnett Bruce, certainly packed dramatic and musical wallops. Eric Sean Fogel supplied lively choreography and Joe Isenberg made fight scenes genuinely terrifying. A sensible compromise among various versions of the opera clocked in at three hours with one intermission.

With dramatic lighting by Mark McCullough, set designer Peter J. Davison reimagined Catfish Row as an industrial ruin of corroded, corrugated metal walls and doors. Kittiwah Island was visualized as an abandoned, crumbling amusement park. Costumes, designed by Paul Tazewell, updated the opera to the 1950s.

The chorus performs during a dress rehearsal of the Fort Worth Opera's production of Porgy and Bess.

(Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer)

The women were the vocal stars of the afternoon. Indira Mahajan's passionately expressive Bess could emit great blazes of tone, but decrescendos on high notes could leave mere glowing embers. Meroe Khalia Adeeb spun out a ravishing "Summertime," except it was awfully slow at first. Karen Slack was a fetching Serena, Gwendolyn Brown an imposing Maria.

Indira Mahajan, who plays Bess, and Thomas Cannon, who plays Porgy, perform during a dress rehearsal of the Fort Worth Opera's production of Porgy and Bess.

(Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer)

Hobbling around with a crutch, Thomas Cannon was a wholly sympathetic Porgy, but one wished his dense baritone had been at least a size larger. Crown is usually personified by a big, threatening brute of a man, but Norman Garrett's tall, strapping version mixed the menace with the sexual magnetism that vaporizes Bess' best intentions.

Indira Mahajan, who plays Bess, and Norman Garrett, who plays Crown, perform during a dress rehearsal.

(Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer)

Jermaine Smith had the strong, pungent tenor and athleticism for the drug-dealing Sportin' Life, but I wish he hadn't so freely "decorated" so great a number as "It Ain't Necessarily So." For my money, both he and Mahajan's Bess seriously overacted the booze-and-drugs highs; surely Sportin' Life wants a less frenetic suavity. John Fulton was a warmly appealing Jake.

Jermaine Smith, who plays Sportin' Life, and the chorus perform during a dress rehearsal.

(Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer)

The chorus plays a huge part in Porgy, and chorus master Alfrelynn Roberts had this one singing stirringly. Artistic director Joe Illick, who conducted, had a good feel for the opera's tenderness as well as its high drama, and members of the Fort Worth Symphony responded accordingly.

Details

Formerly staff classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance writer. Classical music coverage at The News is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. The News makes all editorial decisions.